Slackjaw
| Jim Knipfel | |
|---|---|
Jim Knipfel in his Brooklyn, New York apartment in 2006.
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| Born |
June 2, 1965 Grand Forks, North Dakota, United States |
| Occupation | Novelist, Journalist |
| Nationality | American |
| Notable works |
Memoir Slackjaw (1999) Fiction The Buzzing (2003) |
| Website | |
| www |
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Jim Knipfel (pronounced Kah-nipfel; born June 2, 1965) is an American novelist, autobiographer, and journalist.
A native of Wisconsin, Knipfel, who suffers from retinitis pigmentosa, is the author of a series of critically acclaimed memoirs, Slackjaw, Quitting the Nairobi Trio, and Ruining It for Everybody, as well as two novels, The Buzzing and Noogie's Time to Shine. He wrote news stories, film and music reviews, the crime blotter, and feature articles until June 13, 2006 for the weekly alternative newspaper New York Press, where he was the only staff writer.
He also wrote the long-running and popular "Slackjaw" column for the Press. The first edition of "Slackjaw" appeared on October 25, 1987 in the Welcomat, a Philadelphia weekly (now renamed the Philadelphia Weekly), where he also reviewed restaurants and art exhibits. "Slackjaw", a cynical, misanthropic look at daily life, has given Knipfel a small but loyal following of readers.
Knipfel was born on June 2, 1965 in Grand Forks, North Dakota on the American air base where his father was then stationed. Before he was a year old, the Knipfel family moved to Green Bay, Wisconsin where his father continued to work for the U.S. Air Force for many years and his mother worked in a variety of jobs. In his teens, he was diagnosed with a rare genetic disease called retinitis pigmentosa, which would progressively render him blind in later years. His first memoir, Slackjaw, chronicles the deterioration of his eyesight.
In his teens, while the family was living in Green Bay, he suffered from bouts of severe depression. Between the ages of 14 and 22, Knipfel tried to kill himself twelve times. After his final suicide attempt he was committed to a locked-door psychiatric ward in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he spent six months. He recounted his time there in his second memoir. In a Salon.com interview, he expressed bafflement at his multiple attempts at suicide: "I can't explain why I [attempted suicide] so many times, and how I did such a horrible job of it." In a 2003 interview with Leonard Lopate he said he'd found happiness and was too interested in life to attempt suicide again.
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